


We’ll Give The World To You

by MaddieandChimney



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Despite the trigger warnings this is fluff!whump i promise, F/M, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24918946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Maddie never thought she'd get the chance to be a mother and Chimney never thought he'd be able to hold a baby of his own someday. Yet, not even two years after meeting, she's standing in his apartment with two positive pregnancy tests in her hands and they've never been happier.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20
Collections: Madney One-Shots





	We’ll Give The World To You

Maddie always knew she wanted to be a mom. Even when she was seven years old and holding her baby brother for the first time, she grinned up at her mom and told her _she_ couldn’t wait to be a mommy someday too.

It was never a secret, from the moment she met Doug, she made it clear what she wanted – she wanted marriage, kids, the career. She wanted everything. And at the beginning, he had agreed, making so many promises that she could have the life she had always imagined. A big family: that was all she had ever wanted, three or four kids running around her and a loving husband in their beautiful home.

Life hadn’t turned out the way she had planned or expected it to. Doug never came through on any of his promises, announcing barely a week after their wedding, five years into their relationship that he had no intentions of ever having children. Maddie had been devastated when the words had first been uttered, quickly followed by a determination to change his mind because she loved him. She wanted to have his children more than she wanted anything else.

At least, it’s what she thought she wanted. Until she finds herself staring down at a pregnancy test and wishing the world would just swallow her whole as she waits. Her entire body shakes, one hand moving to the fresh bruise on her cheek before there’s an overwhelming relief. Not pregnant. She’s not carrying his baby; she’s not bringing another person into her mess.

Doug makes his opinion on the matter clear, there’s no debating, there’s no changing his mind. So, the next time she finds herself with a pregnancy test in her hands, barely a year after the first time, the result is entirely different. So, when she tells him, it’s not a happy, loving moment, when she holds out the pregnancy test so he can see for himself and he slaps her hand so hard the item goes flying across the bedroom floor.

It’s her fault. That’s what she reminds herself when she’s sobbing in the shower, hopelessly scrubbing at the blood that drips down her thighs. Saying goodbye to the one and only chance she’s sure she had at being a mother. He had told her time and time again that he wanted it to only ever be the two of them, that it was what made him happy and if he wasn’t happy…

It’s an easy decision, to go to the doctor and ask for birth control, hiding it in the back of the drawer next to her bed. It’s funny, she thinks, Doug is so adamantly against having children, yet the very mention of birth control brings out an anger in him that leaves her cowering in the corner of the bathroom in an attempt to put as much distance between them as she can.

She pushes back the longing she’s always had to be a mother, head resting against the cool tiles of the bathroom floor when slowly moves to lay down. It’s a momentary relief, the cold pressing gently against her bruised face.

Finally, she accepts that she’s not going to be a mom. She’s never going to feel that amazing life growing inside of her, never going to hold her own child in her arms. And really, it’s for the best.

.

When he’s holding Denny in his arms for the first time, Chimney can’t help but grin as he thinks about the day he’s going to hold his own child. He wants a lot of things, but to find a woman who loves him enough to carry his child, to feel that unconditional love and to have it back, is definitely at the top of that list.

He can remember lying next to his dying mother, one hand in hers and his head on her chest as she runs her fingers through his hair, telling him of all the dreams she has for him. She promises him that she’ll be looking down on him, loving him from afar as she watches him fall in love, get married, have at least one child of his own. It’s all she wants for him, she tells him, to be able to know how she feels about him. His mom is holding him as tight as she can when she whispers that he’ll never know how much she loves him until he’s holding a child of his own someday and all he can do is try to hold back the tears as he squeezes her hand.

And he wants it, he wants it more than anything.

His mom passes away and everything seems to spiral down from there, he’s practically an orphan when Mr and Mrs Lee take him and he loves them, but he’s not theirs. They have Kevin and they have each other and he… he’s alone in the world. Really, he feels lost, going job from job, trying to come up with a hundred different business scenarios in the hopes he can get a better life for himself, so he can finally be someone.

Because since his mother left him behind, he’s been invisible or at least, he’s always felt that way.

Nothing seems to work out the way he hopes, he finds a job he thinks he’s meant to do even if no one really seems to want him there. But he still turns up every single day and he hopes more than anything that life will get better. And then Kevin dies, and suddenly, he’s left with no one. Mr and Mrs Lee can’t look him in the eyes and he doesn’t blame them because most of the time, he can’t even look at himself.

He often wonders if life is going to get any better, if maybe all he’ll have is the 118. Then he meets Tatiana and she finds him impressive – even if most of the stories that fall from his lips are complete lies, all he wants to feel is love and to be loved. And she’s beautiful, everything he thinks he wants in a woman, so if he has to tell a few lies to keep her, then what’s the harm?

Only, when he thinks he’s going to die, it’s not her he’s thinking of and he knows what he’s feeling isn’t love, it’s desperation. He’s forty years old with a long line of failed relationships, and all he can think about is how he’s let his mom down. There’s not going to be a wedding, or a baby, he’s going to die with a piece of rebar through his head and no one who loves him in the way his mom so longed for him to be loved.

Even when he opens his eyes and he knows he’s going to survive, he silently apologises to the woman who wanted so much for him, telling himself he’ll never be able to give it to her.

Maybe it’s for the best, he doesn’t know how to be a good parent – an absent, critical dad who wants nothing to do with him and a dead mom he would never be able to live up to.

.

“You’re pregnant.”

“We’re pregnant.”

“ _We’re_ pregnant? We’re having a baby?”

Maddie doesn’t know how long they stand there for, her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, two pregnancy tests still in her hands. Chimney’s face buried in her shoulder, their bodies tightly pressed against each other’s. It somehow seems as though so much time has passed but at the same time, no time at all.

The moment is entirely different from any experience she had with Doug. The excitement started to build the moment she realised that it was a possibility, finally realising, for the first time, that the desire she once had to be a mother had come back.

Of the times she stood in the bathroom, shakily holding a pregnancy test, wishing more than anything that it would be negative. This time, she found herself in the bathroom, smiling down at both tests as she waited with bated breath. And she thought, maybe, even if they were negative and she wasn’t pregnant – maybe they could try. Maybe she could get what she had always wanted but pushed down.

Somehow, despite how terrifying it had once felt to be starting all over again in a whole new city, a new job, surrounded by new people, she knows it’s the best decision she ever made. Finally safe, loved, happy and in the arms of a man who provides her with so much joy.

Chimney is the first to break the content silence, pulling back so he can look her in the eyes, a smile on his face that causes her heart to flutter in a way she can’t describe. She _loves_ him, in a way she’s never loved anyone. Most of all, he loves her in a way she’s never been loved before. “Are you happy?”

“Happier than I’ve ever been, Howie.” The tears fall, the smile on her face wide before he’s taking the tests from her hands and setting them to the side, until he presses his lips to hers. It feels… different in all of the most beautiful ways; as though he’s trying to thank her, to express every ounce of happiness bursting out of him just through a kiss.

.

Chimney walks with pride to his mother’s gravestone, a smile on his face that can’t be wiped away before he sinks down to his knees and takes a deep breath. “I found her, momma, I know it took me a little longer than either of us thought it would. But I found her and… you were right, I knew from the moment I met her. I’ve never had to pretend to be anyone other than who I am and…” Despite the tears falling down his cheeks, he proudly holds out the sonogram as though she’s going to take it from him.

“We’re having a baby, in December. I’m having a baby of my own and I’m finally going to understand how it feels. I know I gave up for a long time, that I thought that maybe, I just wasn’t going to get that. But here we go, and I know you’re watching and I know-I know that you know how much I wish you were here but… if I can be half the parent you were to me, then.. I hope I can make you proud.”

He takes a deep breath before he carefully places the very first photograph he’s ever seen of his baby behind the flower vase that so proudly stands in the centre of the stone. “That one’s for you. Me and Maddie bought as many as we possibly could even if it looks more like a kidney bean than a baby at this point but… we’re excited. I think we’re going to be good parents, I think… I hope.”

.

Feeling their baby kick for the first time, Maddie cries, laughing when Chimney joins in even though he can’t quite feel it just yet. The pregnancy seems to be passing them by a little too quickly, every single moment bringing them such great joy. Maddie doesn’t think she’s ever been this happy or cried so many happy tears in her entire life.

When they find out they’re having a daughter, Maddie’s heart feels as though it’s going to burst with such complete love for a little girl she’s never met. She spends her time imagining what she’s going to look like, hoping she has her daddy’s eyes, his jet-black hair. More than anything, she hopes she has his smile.

They’re surrounded by so much love, more than she’s ever experienced and again, she’s reminded how thankful she is that she came to LA in the first place. When she was younger, she had Buck but still, it took her thirty-five years to truly find a family where she belongs, and where her little brother belongs too. She finds herself whispering to her bump that she’s the luckiest little girl in the world, she’s never going to know what it feels like to be truly alone.

.

When he’s holding their baby girl for the first time, it suddenly feels as though everything is right in the world. He’s full. Full of so much joy, love and amazement for the beautiful girl he holds so proudly in his arms.

Amelia Joy Han.

Chimney sits carefully on the bed next to the woman he adores so much, glancing at her tired smile when she leans her head against his shoulder and stares down at what they’ve created with big, tearful eyes.

He finally understands what his mother meant all those years ago, looking down at this little girl who’s barely been in the world for an hour and already, he’s never felt a love like it. She looks like her mother but with a thick head of black hair, just like he had when he was born. Maddie’s fingers run through it, her expression still in complete awe that she was finally in the world. “She’s so beautiful.” He finally says aloud, lips pressing to Amelia’s forehead and then to Maddie’s, “My two favourite girls.”

Maddie sniffs, snuggling more into his side and he knows how exhausted she must be, how this amazing, strong woman next to him has just gone through seventeen hours of labour to bring their perfect baby into the world. “Sleep, baby, we’re right here. She’s here.”

“Thank you, Howie.”

He opens his mouth to ask her what an earth she’s thanking him for, but instead, he finds himself looking back down at the sleeping baby and he knows. Maddie had given up on this very idea, she had wanted it more than anything once but it hadn’t happened, it wasn’t meant to happen. “Thank you for everything. For loving me, for… for Amelia. She’s perfect, just like you.”

Maddie’s asleep by the time he turns to check on her, moving his hand to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear before he takes a deep breath. His eyes move back down towards the sleeping baby, knowing he should put her down but his eyes are wide with amazement. The tears fall, but the smile remains, “I promise that I’m going to be the best dad I can… I’m going to love you no matter what, there’s nothing you can do that would ever disappoint me. You are so loved, Amelia Joy, so loved and we are so lucky to have you.”

The new father takes a deep breath, unable to believe that barely two years previously he had given up on the very notion of becoming a father. Of being loved, of knowing how it felt to truly love another person and now… now he has everything his mom had wanted for him and so much more.


End file.
